


Harmony of Taboo

by QuietFangirl



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 15:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18013343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietFangirl/pseuds/QuietFangirl
Summary: A team of characters from my twisted mind enter the Curse of Strahd. I thought, there are enough characters I've made for D&D that have never seen the light of day, I might as well use them and make a nice narrative!Alternate title: is flirting with a vampire considered necrophilia?





	Harmony of Taboo

The tavern was bathed in light despite the night sky. The short woman breathed in the cold air and hurried into the quaint wooden establishment. She had to use her shoulder to pop the door open, being too short to effectively use her left hand to open the door.

Warmth washed over her as she stepped inside. The people were scattered across the tavern, but a group was collected against the far wall. She tried to peer around their legs, but due to her stature she was unable to see anything. She shrugged and turned to find a relatively empty table, or at least one that had occupants who would not mind her. There was one in the corner with a figure in a black hooded cloak, face totally obscured. They were sitting alone.

She steeled her nerves, rolled her shoulders back, flexed her fingers with a quiet clink of metal on metal, and strode over with a smile as large as she was.

“Hello!” she said. “Mind if I sit here?”

The person was silent, but the hood tilted to one side. After a moment of her courage slowly draining as she stared into the void, the hood fell forward in a nod. A black gloved hand raised and gestured to the chair in front of her. It slid out.

She took a seat and stared over her shoulder at the crowd. “Any clue what those people are doing there?” Again she was met with silence. She sighed and leaned on the table. “I’m gonna order a drink. You want anything?”

A female voice spoke from under the hood, the first sound she’d heard. “Actual Poison.”

She shot an odd glance at the person but nodded, flagging down the barmaid. “Hello! Could I get a Hammer Maker and Actual Poison?” The young woman nodded and vanished into the back. The short woman turned her attention back to the mysterious cloaked figure. “So! I’m Seraphina Underbough, loyal servant of Yondalla and protector of the innocent.”

The person paused and tapped a shadowy chin. After a moment, she spoke up. “One of the few halfling deities, yes?”

Her eyes glittered. “Yeah! Yondalla, in all her glory, is the goddess of fertility and protection!”

A hand vanished into her hood, and a few strands of dark brown hair emerged from the darkness. She slid the hood down, revealing the lank brown hair, tanned skin, and menacing emerald eye. The other was hidden behind a curtain of hair. There was a faint quirk to her visible eyebrow and a tilt to her lip suggesting that whatever mysterious thing she was thinking was less than appropriate, which added to her alluring charm.

“Hessatal Evenwood.” A pair of sharp fangs poked out from between her plump lips. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

“No, thanks to Yondalla I have resistance to dark magic!” Another bright smile.

The arched eyebrow raised as the drinks were set down. Both women took their drinks and slammed them back. Hessatal cast a lazy gaze over to the steadily growing crowd.

“As for the crowds, I haven’t the faintest idea on why they chose this tavern to infest.” Her black-painted upper lip curled in something almost resembling disgust. A roar of laughter and applause morphed her neutral gaze to something more reproachful. Seraphina followed her stare and smiled at the crowd.

“Come on, they’re enjoying themselves!”

She clucked her tongue. “It’s a sign of weakness. There’s no use to showing emotion.”

“That sounds unhealthy,” Seraphina said, frowning at the stoic yet enchanting woman.

Her face twisted, first into disgust then into something flat and unreadable. “You will pretend you never heard that, else I will hunt you down. Clear?”

She leaned away, but the back of the chair bumped into someone passing behind. She turned around. “I’m so sor--”

She gasped. The one she had bumped into was infamous for her lack of mercy and unpredictable nature. Lamp-like amber eyes stared down at her, a small pink nose twitching. A thick furry tail flicked as the cat person drew her rapier. The point rested on the underside of her chin, ice cold metal sending chills down her spine. A set of small fangs flashed as the pirate quartermaster said, “Watch yourself, pipsqueak. Right now you’re a little fish in a great big pond.”

Bright white sparks flared up behind her. Hessatal stared at the pirate woman. Her head rested on one hand propped up on the table, and the other was open with the palm towards the ceiling, the source of the magical sparks. Her voice was full of contempt as she said, “You are disturbing my time here in this tavern. I will not hesitate to take you down, you insignificant, domestic, sorry excuse for a house cat.”

The rapier moved away from Seraphina’s chin and angled towards Hessatal’s visible eye. “I would love nothing more than to make an example of you.”

Hessatal scoffed. “An example of what? How savages such as you could never dream of measuring up to the superior race?”

A paw slammed down on the table as the woman vaulted over it, light reflecting off the blade.

A gigantic woman pushed Seraphina aside, and a long golden claw hooked on the quartermaster’s collar, pulling the two apart.

Seraphina took a step back, literally and figuratively, and the silence of the tavern slowly sank in. Almost all the patrons had cleared out, leaving a few people standing and staring at the brewing fight. The corner was visible now, revealing a horned woman holding three torches. The remaining audience was focused entirely on Hessatal and the pirate. All except for a tall dark gray woman with a bow like the night sky in her left hand. Her eyes were trained on the door.

“Enough,” the gigantic woman rumbled, still holding the cat woman like a mother cat carries kittens by the scruffs of their necks. “My evening is ruined thanks to you lot.”

Seraphina glanced to the short swords over the woman’s back, as well as the battleaxe strapped to a muscular scaly hip. She opened her mouth to desperately try and diffuse the situation, but was cut off by the door bursting open.

“It’s coming!” a person shrieked, hair pale as the moon overhead. “He’s coming!” Before anyone could react, they collapsed onto the tavern’s dark wooden floor.

Seraphina darted over with a clatter of armor as the other patrons fled, stepping over the body. She pressed her fingers to the person’s wrist, then to their chest, then over their mouth, and finally against their neck. No pulse in the wrist, no heartbeat, no signs of breathing, and no pulse in the neck. She drew her hand back and noted the few spots of blood that came away on her fingers.

She looked up at the seven living people remaining in the tavern. The caster, the quartermaster, the warrior, the archer, the performer, the chef, and the barmaid all stared at her with bated breath and rapt attention. “Dead,” she announced.

The archer rushed to the door and slammed it shut. “Dragonborn,” she barked, intense gaze on the warrior woman with gleaming golden scales. “Get that table over the door. You,” she said, pointing to Seraphina, “How sure are you that they’re dead?”

“Positive. Give me ten minutes and it’ll stay dead,” she said.

The pirate wriggled out of the dragonborn’s grasp and dropped to all fours. She straightened up. “Cutting off the head doesn’t take that long.”

“What a wasteful solution,” Hessatal said, tossing her hair. The hair fell back over her eye. “Just slice it up for rations later.”

“And you call me a savage?” She stepped into the other’s personal space, snarling.

Seraphina’s eyes were wide in shock. “By Yondalla’s holy smiles, is this how you treat the dead?”

Everyone stared at her.

She sniffed disapprovingly, like an old woman reacting to someone swearing in church. “Where I’m from, we bury our dead. And I was going to perform a ritual to prevent the dead body from becoming undead.”

“Lit,” the performer in the corner said, sitting on a table. “I could spare you the trouble and just, like, torch it. But do what you want, kiddo.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m fifty years old.”

The demon woman let out a slow whistle. “Okay, yeah, you’re not a kiddo.”

She slid off the table, grunted, and caught herself on the table. She strode casually over to the barmaid, who by now was shaking in fear. She smiled, revealing messy fangs, and her solid yellow eyes gleamed. She slipped a finger into the shoulder strap of the barmaid’s bodice and pulled her close. “What was out there?”

“I--I--”

She snapped her fingers on her free hand, and a small flame flickered on her fingertips for a minute before extinguishing. “I’d speak up before you get to figure out how fast my fire can catch on clothing and we all get to find out what you look like under that flammable fabric.”

“Vampires!” she blurted out, eyes wide with fear. Her hands flew over her mouth, and the chef turned to her.

“How dare you tell strangers?” he barked, and the woman shivered. “It’s our business, no one else’s!”

“We’re making it our business,” the archer decided.

“I concur,” Seraphina echoed. “They are unholy and take the gift of life for granted.”

The dragonborn woman cleared her throat and pointed at the gap between the floor and the exterior door.

Hessatal frowned and crouched near the spreading white mist. She pushed her hair back and hummed. After some quiet observation, she recoiled, hair falling back into her eyes. “Abjuration and conjuration. This is no illusion.”

“Simpler terms, miss wiz,” the tiefling said, releasing the deathly pale barmaid.

“This is standard magical terminology. I wouldn’t expect a mere entertainer like you to understand,” she dismissed. She yelped and fell back as a blaze of fire started exactly where she had been squatting.

“I got fire in my veins, wizard.”

“Warlock,” she corrected.

There was a sharp knock at the door, and both employees of the tavern froze. The dragonborn woman, who had not moved the table, stepped to the door. She waved a hand to the other occupants.

Seraphina shoved her aside and braced the bottom of her tower shield against the floor. The woman took the hint and let her be the wall. She unsheathed her short swords and took a fighting stance. The pirate woman vanished into the shadows. The archer tipped a table over into a barricade and knelt behind it, notching an arrow. Hessatal twirled her staff and raised it. The tiefling cracked her knuckles and slipped a simple wand out of a nook in her silver boots.

Seraphina reached up and twisted the doorknob. White mist poured into the room, and the tavern faded away.

The world refocused. They were standing in the same positions, without the two employees, in the center of a white field. The rancid scent of rot filled the air, wafting off the rotting vegetation. It all coalesced into a stench of death that clung to the landscape. Down the hill was a town and castle, all surrounded by thick woods and an oppressive fog.

“And here I thought I could catch you unawares,” a rich baritone voice said from behind them. Seraphina yelped and spun around, catching the dragonborn in the leg with her shield.

Hessatal turned and slowly blinked at the man, showing no alarm or even a hint of surprise. “Judging from her reaction, you succeeded.”

The barest hint of a smile brushed across his handsome and pale features, though it showed less than the smile of the Mona Lisa. Five humanoid things were fanned out around him. “You are fascinating. I would love to hold a conversation somewhere more… private.”

She smiled, sliding her bottom lip in front of her fangs to fully conceal them. “That sounds delightful.”

“Yo, uh, where are we?” the tiefling asked, raising a tentative hand. “And who are you?”

“Oh, of course.” He laced his gloved fingers together and allowed a smile as he stepped through the group. He stood overlooking the village, back to the party. His… followers… stayed behind. He spread his arms. “Welcome to my kingdom.”


End file.
